Pokemon fever is back and more feverish than ever. As Pokemon Go breaks loose of the Gaming Hut, forcing players onto the actual streets, is there anything we can riff about it that reality hasn’t already delivered?

Ken watched every Dracula flick he could get his hands on, and now the result of that effort, The Thrill of Dracula, awaits your reading pleasure. We open Ken’s coffin to chat about it in Among My Many Hats.

Our amygdalas alert us to danger whenever we see an upside down triangle. In Fun With Science, we go behind the science to make up explanations for this peculiar phenomenon.

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.

The Pinnacle

Kill, Baby, Kill! (Film, Italy, Mario Bava, 1966) Possibly Bava’s purest gothic presents the failure of male Enlightenment reason in the person of coroner Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) when confronted with the supernatural and eternal feminine: a sorceress (Fabienne Dali), a widowed crone of a baroness (Gianna Vivaldi), a beautiful orphan (Erika Blanc), and a murderous little girl ghost in white. Bava does things with the camera and the mise-en-scene that even he couldn’t repeat, creating a compelling dream of a ghost story with color, sound, shadow, and movement. –KH

Recommended

Deutschland 83 (TV, Germany, Sundance/RTL, Anna Winger, 2015) Eight episodes follow East German soldier Martin (Jonas Nay) as he is recruited in 1983 by East German intelligence, hastily trained in tradecraft, and inserted into a NATO base as aide-de-camp to West German General Edel (Ulrich Noethen). The series unfolds with period punctilio as the East becomes ever more convinced of an upcoming American nuclear first strike, and as Martin becomes ever more deeply enmeshed in Edel’s dysfunctional family life. Strong Cold War spy narrative carries and colors the soapy side notes, resulting in riveting, slippery drama. –KH

Diary of a Teenage Girl (Film, US, Marielle Heller, 2015) As part of her headlong leap into sexual experience, a 15 year old aspiring comix artist pursues an affair with her mother’s handsome but feckless boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgard.) Brilliant performance by lead Bel Powley anchors this keenly honest indie drama, based on Phoebe Gloeckner’s semi-autobiographical mixed media book. Refreshingly non-punitive for a film about challenging adolescent sexuality.–RDL

Train to Busan (Film, South Korea, Yeon Sang-Ho, 2016) Distant, self-involved dad Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) reluctantly accompanies his young daughter (Kim Su-an) on the titular train to his ex-wife’s house … on the day the zombie apocalypse breaks out in Korea. The zombies are fast (just a hint of camera stutter) and ferocious, their wave attacks putting the similar but too-bombastic zombie piles of World War Z to shame. Its post-Romero message of altruism (and its fully Romero message of class struggle) come on a little thick, but this is everything you want from a zombie movie and everything you want from a train movie. –KH

Star Trek Beyond (Film, US, Justin Lin, 2016) A routine rescue mission for the Enterprise turns into a confrontation with a vampiric villain fielding a fleet of hive ships. Though the space combat action could be clearer, overall this plays as a pretty solid meeting point between a TOS episode and a contemporary tentpole actioner.–RDL

Good

Von Ryan’s Express (Film, US, Mark Robson, 1965) New-fledged USAAC Colonel Ryan (Frank Sinatra) finds himself ranking officer in an Italian POW camp, at odds with British elite professional soldier Major Fincham (Trevor Howard). The film becomes something rather special when the men leave the camp for a German prisoner train headed for Austria, but the Jerry Goldsmith score tries too hard to echo Elmer Bernstein’s Great Escape and its prominence undermines the pacing. –KH

Not Recommended

Cold War II (Film, HK, Lok Man Leung & Kim-Ching Luk, 2016) Rock-ribbed police commissioner (Aaron Kwok) clashes with a wily legislator (Chow Yun-Fat) as criminals conspire to replace him with his disgraced predecessor (Tony Leung Kar Fai.) With its overdone scoring and a great cast forced into a portentous acting style, this is more interesting as a political document, indicating what you can and can’t say about government in Hong Kong, than as a movie.–RDL

Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! We can remember starting this occasionally humble podcast like it was yesterday, but here we are with our 200th episode. And you know what that means: lightning round questions. This time, served up primarily by our Patreon backers. Among the many topics: underused Lovecraft, why conversion rules will always break your heart, and where huts come from, dealing with rules lawyers, and limes versus lemons.

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.

Recommended

Drácula (Film, US, George Melford, 1931) When Tod Browning’s crew wrapped up each day’s filming on Universal’s Dracula, a Latin American cast took over the same sets hoping to top what he was doing, and this fascinating footnote in film history is the result. Snappier pacing than the English-language version, but its Dracula, Carlos Villarías, projects the opposite of power and menace. This vacuum makes it all the more apparent that Renfield is actually the protagonist of the stage play and thus the Universal Dracula.—RDL

Experimental Film (Fiction, Gemma Files, 2015) Toronto film-studies professor Lois Cairns enters an unfolding pagan horror when she investigates a forgotten Ontario heiress, one who may have made Canada’s first fantasy film before vanishing from a moving railroad car in 1918. Shimmering in the penumbrae of Tim Powers, Ramsey Campbell, and Elizabeth Hand, Experimental Film especially recalls Theodore Roszak’s hugely underrated film-history horror novel Flicker, with all the creep factor and a bigger emotional depth charge. –KH

Goldtiger (Comics, Guy Adams & Jimmy Broxton, 2016) Meta-narrative about the creative disaster that never was Goldtiger, a (fictional) 1960s spy-fi comic created by insane artist Antonio Barreti and self-important hack writer Louis Schaeffer (or Shaeffer, his ever-shifting orthography being part of the bit). Told in fits and starts around a reprint of “all of the surviving strips” from Lily Gold and Jack Tiger’s inaugural adventure “The Poseidon Complex,” the joke is seriously inside baseball but the quasi-Modesty Blaise comic and glossily po-faced production design make for swinging Britpop Art . –KH

Ip Man 3 (Film, HK, Wilson Yip, 2015) In late 50s HK the legendary Wing Chun master Ip Man (Donnie Yen) protects a school from gangsters and deals with an ambitious rival. Unlike earlier entries in the series, this doesn’t aspire to be anything other than standard issue martial arts melodrama, but the action direction is by Yuen Woo-Ping so it’s a superior example of that template. Gotta say though that any film with Mike Tyson in it could be improved by not having Mike Tyson in it.—RDL

The Prince and the Zombie: Tibetan Tales of Karma (Nonfiction, Tenzin Wangmo, 2012) A wayward princeling repeatedly journeys to India to capture a zombie and repair his besmirched karma, but again and again lets him escape because he cannot help but react to the creature’s beguiling storytelling. Charming retelling of Tibetan Buddhism’s equivalent of the Arabian Nights warns of narrative’s seductive dangers.–RDL

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (Film, UK, Martin Ritt, 1965) Almost note-for-note adaptation of the classic John Le Carré novel shines in all the places cinema can improve fiction: brilliant acting especially from Richard Burton as false defector Alec Leamas, note-perfect grimy production design, and fully controlled if only sporadically brilliant direction and cinematography. Even the script is tight and clear, rather moreso than the novel in some ways. –KH

Straight Outta Compton (Film, US, F. Gary Gray, 2015) Music docudrama traces the rise of L.A. gangsta rap through the formation and dissolution of NWA. Gray solves the coherence problem that plagues most biopics with a restless, roving style that embraces the chaos of its storyline. Delves more than most music movies into the industry’s shady financial practices.–RDL

Good

Ghostbusters (Film, US, Paul Feig, 2016) Misfit parapsychologists battle an NYC ghost epidemic. If this feels unlike the original, it’s not because it stars funny women instead of funny men, but due to the contrast between GB84 as a marvel of narrative momentum and GB16 as loose collection of comic riffs.–RDL

Okay

Scream (Nonfiction, Margee Kerr, 2015) Sociologist who contributes to on a socially responsible haunted house attraction goes on a journey to explore the science and cultural context of fear, from the CN Tower Edgewalk to the dangerous streets of Bogota. In a now common structure in pop science books, bids for relatability by framing the technical stuff with abundant first person anecdote. I found myself wanting more of the former and less of the latter.–RDL

In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Conrad Kinch asks what the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan might be up to in 5000 AD. The answer might surprise him!

Now that you’ve worked your way through the filmography we provided in our Westerns 101 segment, the Cinema Hut rides back to the corral to pick some deeper cuts. Yes, it’s Westerns 201.

Fun With Science tackles a question from supporter Antti Elomaa: “Aside from building Geiger-counters and scientific apparatii, what use could one have for pre-nuclear steel, main source of which is the German WWI fleet scuttled at Scapa Flow?”

Then we’re back in the parlor of the Consulting Occultist to hear the tale of reputed 16th century sorcerer Rinaldo des Trois-Echelles du Mayne.

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.

Recommended

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Film, US, Sam Peckinpah, 1970) Crusty prospector (Jason Robards) left to die in the desert finds water and opens a stagecoach stop while falling for a kindly prostitute (Stella Stevens.) Oddball mix of sentimentality, theatricality and existentialism, plus a musical number, wins out over some wildly misjudged lurches into Benny Hill-style comedy. Very much of its time, and by time I mean a very specific 3-4 year period in filmmaking when the rule book went out the window.–RDL

The Dirdir (Fiction, Jack Vance, 1969) In part 3 of the Planet of Adventure series, stranded Earthman and his unlikely local boon companions face a rapacious species that hunts humans for sport. Along with the archetypal Vancian haggling and betrayal the accent in this instalment is on action, suspense, and stoic comradeship.–RDL

Little America: The War Within the War For Afghanistan (Nonfiction, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, 2012) Acutely limned account traces the big hopes and thwarted rewards of the Obama administration’s attempt to surge its way to victory in, withdrawal from, Afghanistan. Lays out in too-true-to-believe detail the manifold ways in which wishful thinking and competing agendas between US institutions doomed an already dauntingly complex objective.–RDL

Occupied Season 1 (TV, TV2 Norway, 2015) Top-notch political thriller depicts a “velvet glove” Russian occupation of a near-future Norway betrayed by the EU and abandoned by the US. Its laudable narrative economy (only four major characters) leads to some unlikely plotting and a slightly sparse feel, but the driving momentum, expertly ratcheted tension, and intelligent issues-driven story more than make up for that. –KH

Good

The Ghosts of Belfast (Fiction, Stuart Neville, 2009) Apparitions of his victims impel alcoholic ex-IRA killer to avenge them against his accomplices. Contemporary noir with supernatural touches uses the kill list structure to paint a blood-spattered portrait of post-accord Northern Ireland.–RDL

Headhunters (Film, Norway, Morten Tyldum, 2011) Corporate headhunter Peter (Aksel Hennie) has a second career as an art thief, which lands him in trouble when he crosses paths with a surveillance-tech exec (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who just happens to be a veteran of a special-forces manhunting unit. A strong crime thriller in the moment, but the plotting is too facile to put it in the top rank of “twisty game of cat and also cat” movies. –KH

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2015) When the IMF gets shut down Ethan Hunt goes rogue to take down a rogue counterpart of the IMF. Recognizes that people mostly want a Tom Cruise/Simon Pegg buddy action flick and delivers that, while also being the film in the franchise to most resemble an episode of the TV series. Briskly executed, avoids bending itself out of shape in pursuit of unwelcome memorability.–RDL

Okay

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons (Nonfiction, Michael Witwer, 2015) If Witwer’s book included more actual information about Gary’s art or business, it might be easier to forgive its fictionalized scene-setting and irritating time jumps. Major events — drugs, sex, Tim Kask — get brushed in passing while Witwer clumsily and repetitively tries to enter Gary’s head as a character in his own ongoing adventure. Still, it’s the only biography of Gary we’ve got, which is something. –KH

Ragnarok (Film, Norway, Mikkel Braenne Sandemose, 2013) Terrible father and archaeologist Sigurd (Pål Sverre Hagen) follows clues on a runestone to “Odin’s Eye,” an isolated lake in the no-man’s-land between Norway and Russia, and discovers a giant snake, eventually. Stupid, shallow characters and ending dampen most of the tension and much of the monster-movie joy, although the use of the actual Oseberg Ship as the hook points toward how to do it better in games. –KH

The electronic voting booth for the 2016 is now open for business, giving you, the listener, the chance to demonstrate your fine taste by supporting Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff in the Best Podcast Category.

Once there, you will spot other Ken and Robin related nominations for Feng Shui 2, Dracula Dossier, Ken Writes About Stuff and the Page XX Webzine.

Matters come to a head in the Gaming Hut, where we talk about writing scenario climaxes.

In Ask Ken and Robin, Patreon backer Eric Jeppesen asks Ken and Robin to help weave a campaign around 16th century English-Ottoman relations and the figure of Edward Barton.

Enterprising filmmakers tasked a deep learning neural net to write a short film screenplay for them, and this is the result. We step into the oh so analytical confines of the Narrative Hut to discuss its implications.

Finally supporter Paul S. Enns asks us to rev up Ken’s Time Machine for a look at the timeline where Richard Nixon went unpardoned for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted.

You say that’s still not enough Ken for you? Very well, my friend. His brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.

Recommended

Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History (Non-fiction, Matthew White, 2012) Running chronologically from the Second Persian War (480-479 BC, 300,000 dead) to the Second Congo War (1998-2002, 3.8 million dead), White recapitulates his weirdly fascinating and comprehensive website in not particularly handy (688 pages!) book form. All-time worst? The Second World War (including the Holocaust and wartime atrocities by Japan and Stalin) at 66 million dead, but the devil is in this case quite literally in the details. –KH

Game of Thrones Season 6 (TV, HBO, 2016) Secondary antagonists get swept from the board as the series’ key figures position themselves for the coming final war for Westeros. After a slow first few episodes, the showrunners show the advantage of working from GRRM’s rough notes instead of the novels: it allows for streamlined pacing, story beats the audience has been craving, and even low-key scenes in which characters express affection for one another.–RDL

Midnight Special (Film, US, Jeff Nichols, 2016) A desperate father (Michael Shannon) goes on the run to protect his paranormally gifted son from the Feds and a religious cult. To namecheck the classics this methodical, sure-handed SF thriller references would spoil its methodical unspooling of information. With Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver and Sam Shepard.–RDL

Silicon Valley Season 3 (TV, HBO, 2016) Battles for control of the company bedevil our engineer heroes as they try to bring Pied Piper’s compression app to the public. This season’s momentum is mostly sideways, but so are leadership struggles and the cast and writing are as sharp and hilarious as ever. Stephen Tobolowsky nails it as the superficially inspiring but actually jaded new CEO brought in to guide the company in its transition from world-changing idea to immediate cash machine.–RDL

Veep Season 5 (TV, HBO, 2016) After a tied electoral college threatens to throw the election to the House and Senate, Selina Myer and staff connive, threaten and vituperate their way through an effort to hold onto the presidency. With its single narrative over the course of the season, S6 works like a mini-series within a series. Still as scabrously funny as ever and the truest depiction of politics on TV today.–RDL

Good

Raising the Dead: The Men Who Created Frankenstein (Nonfiction, Andy Dougan, 2008) Science history and cultural history intertwine in this examination of the influence of galvanic medical experiments on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and vice versa. Achieves admirable succinctness while still finding room for evocative anecdotal details.–RDL

That Gal… Who Was In That Thing (Film, US, Ian Roumain, 2015) Eight female character actors discuss the challenges of their chosen careers, including lack of roles, aging, appearance, life/work balance and harassment. Interview-driven doc provides telling contrast to its predecessor, featuring male journeymen actors.–RDL

They Look Like People (Film, US, Perry Blackshears, 2015) Young New Yorker with workplace confidence problems invites an old friend to crash at his place, unaware that he’s sees most of humanity as infected by demonic presences. Naturalistic exploration of untrustworthy perceptions walks the line between horror and indie drama.—RDL

Okay

All Cheerleaders Die (Film, US, Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson, 2013) After the death of her best friend in a cheerleading accident, Mäddy (Caitlin Stasey) joins the squad in an elaborate revenge plot that rapidly goes astray thanks to lesbian jealousy, witchcraft stones, body-swapping, multiple deaths, revenant-ness, and toxic masculinity. McKee & co. lose control of the ambitious, overcrowded storyline, and what is probably meant to be sly subversion of misogynist horror too often becomes that which it sought to destroy. Individual bits are quite funny or weird, and the spiraling chaos of adolescence comes through, but Jennifer’s Body remains the pinnacle of the high-school cheerleader black-magic ghoul horror subsubsubgenre. –KH

The Scaffold and Other Cruel Tales (Fiction, Jean-Marie-Mathias Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, 1885) Though part of translator Brian Stableford’s French Horror series from Black Coat Press, this collection of stories is really a mixed bag including a few horror-adjacent and proto-fantasy pieces along with fables, 19th century hot takes, and wry vignettes of human foible. Shows the fondness for ironic conclusions found in contemporaries such as Maupassant, Bierce and Chambers, with an emphasis on the erudite, eclectic, and arch.–RDL

The Vampire Countess (Fiction, Paul Feval, 1855) Master fencer turned Parisian morgue operator investigates conspiracy by seductive Hungarian vampire to turn a Royalist rebel over to Napoleon. The sins of serialization weigh heavily on this half brisk, half leaden combo of spy thriller and supernatural adventure. Pluses include a very stealable alternate set of vampire rules and its early blend of real historical figures and gothic horror.–RDL

Ken and Robin have oft been accused of being cards. Well, we can deny it no longer. We have become super-limited promo cards for Murder of Crows, Atlas Games’ fast-paced card game of murder and the macabre, for two to five players in the mood for something a little morbid. It’s Edward Gorey meets Caligari, by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Wait a minute, what does that graphic say? I’m not so sure about this… Ken fans who did not partake of the Kickstarter can now sink their fangs into the general release of the Dracula Dossier from Pelgrane Press, consisting of the Director’s Handbook and Dracula Unredacted. This episode also brought to you by Joe Dever’s Freeway Warrior, Kickstarting from now until July 7th. Survive the apocalypse with the blazing return of Joe Dever’s classic game books, now from Askfageln. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.